


Mistwalker

by Nahiel



Series: Mistwalker [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Asexual Character, Bisexual Character, Child Death, Demon, Elemental Magic, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, M/M, Multi, Oracles, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, Sky Pirates, Soulmates, incubus, the child does not belong to any main characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22204660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nahiel/pseuds/Nahiel
Summary: Laurel Johnson, an everyday college student trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life, is just celebrating her 21st birthday with her mother when she finds herself kidnapped by Arcosian sky pirates and used as leverage to control a demon in a ridiculous revenge plot.Her mother, a retired criminal born and raised in Arcos, a land of magic that thrives on chaos, decides to go after her, and in doing so must confront the past she's tried to leave behind.
Series: Mistwalker [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598389
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	1. Prologue - Wherein the Buyer Should Beware

Zack leaned back in his chair and studied the women in front of him. There were three of them: a vampire, a mage, and an elf. The elf, a redhead barely clad in much of anything aside from the metal jewelry that graced her skin, was particularly interesting to Zack. Her future stretched before her in infinite possibilities, but the black bands she bore around her wrists told him how little she’d care about what he had to offer her.

A pity, really.

The other redhead of the group, the vampire and leader of the pack, leaned forward, drawing his attention back to her. “You have to help us, Allseeing,” she murmured, her voice throaty with a hint of compulsion. “You’re the only one who can.”

“Mind that power of yours,” he said idly. She probably didn’t even realize she was doing it. Compulsion came easily to her, as it did to all vampires. It was one of their species’ natural gifts. Oh, what he would do with a power like that…

Honestly, it was probably for the best that he had to rely on boring old charisma.

“My apologies,” the Skyqueen said, quick to duck her head in self-deprecation. “But I would remind you, Oracle, that you must help us. You owe us.” While Skyqueen was a truly impressive title, her true name was simply Lini if one knew her well enough.

And, though she didn’t realize it, Zack most assuredly did know her well enough. His nose wrinkled ever so slightly. “I am aware. I don’t turn my back on my debts.”

She nodded, the gesture slight. He studied her in silence for several moments. She looked tired, almost desperate. There was a pain in her eyes that he hoped never to feel, though he knew there was every chance that one day he might. And her left Heart… the Mage had something in her grey eyes, in her future, that nearly took his breath away.

He could use them, even as he gave them what they asked him so nicely for.

“Are you certain that this is what you want from me?” he asked, a rare hint of conscience prickling at him. “I would much rather do something else for you, later on. This… it might seem to be what you want, but I don’t know that it will truly give you what you need.”

It wasn’t a warning he gave often. Were the Skyqueen as clever as she claimed to be, she would heed it.

“What I want is a way to control the demon we’ve been keeping locked in our hold for the past year,” Lini bit out. “That’s what you’re going to give to me, Oracle, or I’ll tell the whole of Arcos that you backed out on paying a debt. What do you expect that will do for your favored currency?”

Zack shrugged. He’d often found that people were not as clever as they claimed. “I thought that you wanted to get revenge for the death of your right Heart, Thera. If I was wrong, then I am, as always, happy to be of service.”

“What happened to Thera will be avenged, as is fitting, with the use of the demon. He will destroy the ones who first set him against us, and Thera’s memory will be laid to rest.” This was the mage, Mali, Lini’s left Heart. She was, according to Zack’s best knowledge of her, an accomplished Spellcrafter.

Zack sighed. He’d given them a warning, and that was all his conscience owed them. Frankly, considering their plan and what they would do to accomplish it, it was more than they deserved. “There is no way for you to control the demon permanently,” he said, hiding a smirk. No way other than the one they already had, but of course, they had no idea what they actually had in their possession.

Really, people should be more careful with ancient magical relics of phenomenal power…

“What I can offer instead is a temporary method at best, and contingent upon the two beings in question never having a conversation. Once they do, you will lose your control of him. So use him quickly and be done with it after that. If you attempt to draw out your revenge, to use him more than one time, you will lose everything, Skyqueen.”

Lini’s head dipped in a gesture of acknowledgement. “I thank you for the warning,” she said, her voice grave. But when she looked up, her eyes glowed with avarice. Zack didn’t need his sight to know that she wouldn’t heed his advice. “Now tell me what we need to know, Allseeing, and we will make certain that all of our allies know the truth of your fairness.”

Zack’s lips twitched only briefly before he smoothed the expression from his face. “I offer you the name of one of the demon’s Hearts. She is Laurel Johnson, and can be found in the Mundane Lands.” He tapped his fingers against his desk, a staccato, rhythmic beat. “Be warned that taking her will be not unlike kicking a hornet’s nest. You will be strongly pursued and, should she be mistreated in your care, even if your two captives never have a conversation, you will also lose everything.”

Lini snorted and pushed back slightly from the desk. “Please, Allseeing, I begin to doubt your visions if you believe that a little Mundane girl could pose any kind of threat to the Hounds.” She stood, and jerked on the chain attached to the elven redhead’s collar. The elf stood smoothly, and offered Zack a small smile. “We thank you for your warnings, and will remember them.”

Lini turned and left, the mage and elf following in her wake. Mali made sure that the door slammed behind them, an exit no doubt intended to inspire some form of emotion.

In Zack, it inspired only amusement. “Oh, Lini,” he murmured, his lips twitching into a genuine smile. “I never said that she was Mundane, did I?” Besides, everybody knew that Mundanes didn’t have Hearts, not like Arcosians did.

He stood and left his office, passing through a dark hallway to the room that was, arguably, the most important in his compound. The Room of Debt was massive and, as its name implied, was filled with unpaid debts. The blue figurines stood for debts that he owed, and the red for debts that were owed to him. Those most likely to be paid quickly were on a shelf near the front of the room. The room itself stretched back into a yawning chasm of nothingness that would devour any intruders who thought to steal away their debts.

He took the debt he owed the Hounds, the sky pirates and their Skyqueen, which gleamed blue and bright, and let it fall to the floor. It exploded into a blue glitter-dust, which simply added to the already glittering floor. He studied the shelf for another few moments, then pulled another debt that he owed from it and let it fall to the ground in another small explosion.

This time, the glitter-dust whirled at his fingertips until he added it to the inkwell on the nearby desk for the message he needed to send.

The letter he wrote read only this:

_I have paid my debt to you in the form which you requested. She will come to you soon, in the place you last met. Please tell her that she’s right about Meros, and that she still owes me. Happy hunting, oh Frozen one._

As tempting as it was to scribble a smiley at the end, Zack simply sent it off as it was.

Frozenflame would be angry enough without poking at that particular dragon’s nest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arcos is my baby. I've worked with this universe for a decade, maybe longer, and I don't think I'll ever be ready or willing to publish it traditionally. So here's the first story I've ever finished in this universe, offered for free! The rough draft is complete, and I'm editing as I go along. I think I'm going to need to add some chapters, hence the lack of final chapter count. I intend to post one chapter per week, or somewhere around there.
> 
> Enjoy!


	2. Chapter One - Wherein Laurel Becomes a Damsel in Distress

Laurel hummed softly as she puttered around the kitchen, putting water on to boil. The sauce was mostly finished, and it had been simmering ever since she’d gotten home from school earlier in the afternoon. By now, the meat would be fully infused with the flavor of the sauce, meaning that it was almost time to eat.

That was perfect, because Laurel was almost positive that she was going to starve to death if she didn’t eat soon.

She pulled spaghetti noodles down from the cupboard, and flinched at the sight of a small, perfectly harmless brown spider on the box. “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said, her voice shaking ever so slightly. She grabbed a paper towel and coaxed the spider onto it, her hand shaking. It twitched in her general direction, and she let out a small shriek and nearly dropped it.

Instead of doing so, she made herself clench the napkin in her hands, and walked, white-knuckled, over to the window, which she opened quickly. She scooted the spider out the window and onto the wall of their apartment building, then slammed the window before it could get back in.

She drew in a shuddering breath, her hands still shaking. Then she drew in another, steadier one, and one more after that for good measure. Then she returned to her cooking.

Or, she would have, had she not heard the door to the apartment creak open. There was a muffled thud as it slammed shut, which was followed by a second thud as a body landed against the wall of the living room. Laurel sighed and turned off the water and the sauce, then, after wiping her hands on the apron she wore to protect herself from sauce splatters, she headed into the living room.

Her mother was sitting where she’d fallen, her head tipped back against the wall, her brown eyes bleary and unfocused. “Laurel!” A smile bloomed over her mother’s face, bright and cheerful and far too expressive.

Her mother never smiled like that. Not sober, anyway. Laurel sighed. “You’re drunk,” she said, knowing it to be true.

“It’s true,” her mother said, the words slurring together slightly. “Kai… Kai made these shot thingies that were… that were amazing. You should have tried them!”

“I would have, but I wasn’t there,” she said, and held a hand out to her mother. It took a minute, but eventually her mother grabbed for her hand and allowed herself to be hauled to her feet. She stumbled against Laurel, and Laurel, with the ease of great practice, easily supported her through the living room and into the bedroom. She helped her mother settle on the bed and tugged off her shoes, even as her mother burrowed into her sheets.

“Sorry,” her mother said suddenly, the word soft and sad.

Laurel’s heart broke for her mother, who didn’t deserve the crippling sorrow that crested over her in waves. “It’s fine,” she said, her own voice thick with tears that wanted to rise within her. She leaned over and pressed a kiss to her mother’s forehead, then stood. “It’s totally fine. Get some rest, sleep this off, and when you wake up, there’s going to be spaghetti for dinner.”

“With homemade sauce?” her mother asked, her brown eyes wide and hopeful. It made her weary, freckled face look much more like Laurel’s, which was to say it looked younger. Already they could almost pass as twins, save for the difference in their hair. Laurel’s was long, down to her waist, and a more muted shade of auburn; her mother’s was short and wild, like the fire it resembled.

“With homemade sauce,” Laurel confirmed. She pressed another kiss to her mother’s forehead. “Now rest.”

“You’re such a good girl,” her mother sighed, and Laurel knew that she was already drifting off to sleep. She could practically feel it herself.

She settled in the chair next to her mother, wanting to make sure that she didn’t throw up in her sleep and suffocate. She stayed there for a long time, and when she finally got up to finish dinner, the sauce had gone completely cold. That was fine. She wanted her mother to sleep off the alcohol in its entirety before she woke her up.

When she was sober, her mother was far easier to be around and far less prone to such changeable moods.

* * *

When she got home from grocery shopping the next day, the house was empty except for Frosty, their cat. Which was fine, really. It wasn’t like the day was a special one or anything. Certainly it wasn’t like she was officially twenty-one and it was a Saturday, or anything ridiculous like that. It wasn’t as though she could finally go with her mother to The Merry Maid and have a legal drink or anything.

But it was fine, really. Laurel would take it as a good birthday present if her mother came home sober. That would be fantastic. Or, if she was drunk, maybe she wouldn’t be falling down drunk? Maybe, if Laurel was lucky, her mother would wait to get drunk until Laurel could be with her, officially, for the first time.

Or maybe she was just paranoid. Perhaps her mother had been called into work or something. That… that was a far more likely option than her going out day drinking. That wasn’t one of her normal vices. And Kaiden did seem to have a terrible time keeping help at the bar, so maybe that was the case.

Maybe, now that she was twenty-one, she could apply. A little bit of spare money certainly wouldn’t help her and her mother get by. She still wasn’t sure how they managed to keep the apartment on the little her mother made as a bouncer…

She checked the kitchen for a note, and, not finding one, shrugged and began putting the groceries away. It didn’t take her long at all, and once she was finished, she looked around while trying to decide what to do.

One idea came to her, and while it wasn’t exactly fun, it would at least be productive. She grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter and crunched into it as she pulled out her biology textbook. She found science to be mildly interesting, and was considering it as a major when she transferred into a four-year school. 

She tucked a strand of her long auburn hair behind her ear and began to concentrate in earnest on her reading as she got sucked in. She had a test on Friday and, if she didn’t focus, she knew she’d get a bad grade.

She read until she had to stop to flick on the lights, and when she stood to do that, she fed Frosty as well. He immediately showed his appreciation for such kindness by getting his long white fur all over her black jeans. She grabbed herself a bag of chips after brushing off her pants, and vowed that she would actually cook once she finished the chapter.

Unfortunately, the chapter ended all too soon, leaving her with the responsibility of cooking and none of the motivation. She opened the fridge and wrinkled her nose. There was plenty of food available, but nothing that she actually felt like eating. Besides, she didn’t really want to cook on her birthday. Who would? She let the fridge fall closed and opened the cabinet with the pasta, hoping that something quick and easy would jump out at her. Perhaps literally.

She picked up a box of elbow macaroni and frowned. Buttered noodles, maybe… But she didn’t actually want that, she didn’t think. She didn’t know what she wanted, and nothing in the cabinet was drawing her attention. “Motherfucker,” she hissed, and continued her search.

It was in vain. Nothing appealed to her, no matter how many times she opened the fridge or rifled through her cabinets.

“Well, I guess I’m ordering out tonight,” she said to Frosty, who, predictably, ignored her. She wandered back to the fridge one final time and studied the takeout menus that covered it. Whatever she ordered, she supposed that she should get cake. It was her birthday, after all, and she deserved some cake.

Just as she decided on pizza, she heard the front door open. “Laurel, I’m home, and I’ve got pizza!”

Laurel’s eyebrows rose, and she grinned. “It’s like you read my mind!” she called back. The smell of melted cheese, tomato sauce, and pepperoni met her nose and her stomach rumbled. “Tell me that you’ve got dessert, too.”

Her mother stared back at her, her own red eyebrow quirking up. “Please. Like I wouldn’t get you cake on your birthday.” She rolled her eyes. “I know better than that. You’d just send me out for it again, like the rotten child that you are.” The wink she sent Laurel took the sting from her words.

“Whatever,” Laurel said with a grin and a roll of her eyes.

The pizza was placed on the table and the two looked at each other before deciding, as one, that plates weren’t really necessary. In short order the pizza was all but gone as both women devoured their allotted slices.

“So, I didn’t get a chance to talk to you yesterday.” Her mother set down her last piece, half-eaten, and leaned on the table with a smile. “How was school?”

“Meh.” Laurel shrugged. “It was school. It was boring, and I’m half-convinced that I’m going to fail a few classes again.”

“You won’t,” her mother said. “You never do, and you always say that!” Her mother laughed, the sound just a little bit sad. “I swear, Laurel, you’re more like your father than you’ll ever know. He always expected the worst of everything.

Laurel stared down at the mostly-empty box. “You’ve said.” Her father had been dead since before she’d been born. Why couldn’t her mother move on? It had been twenty-one years, at least, for God’s sake!

Her mother sighed and stood. “I don’t mean to depress you on your birthday.” She busied herself at the counter for a few minutes and when she turned around again, she had two pieces of cake. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting, Laurel’s favorite. 

Her mother settled her piece in front of her, then took her seat once more. “Shall I sing to you?” she asked, a wicked grin on her lips.

“Oh God no, please,” Laurel said quickly. She’d learned a long time ago that her mother had no kind of a singing voice and she wasn’t eager to hear her try it again. At all. Ever. Frosty had a better voice when he was yowling at other cats.

“Right, right, sorry I asked.” Her mother was laughing now, a soft sound that made Laurel smile. She didn’t laugh often, not when she was sober.

The cake was excellent. After finishing it, Laurel and her mother settled in front of the television to watch whatever they could find. It was something of a ritual for them when they were both home, and Laurel always enjoyed it. 

During one of the commercial breaks, something landed in her lap, startling her.

Laurel glanced down to see a small, wrapped box, and she smiled because she knew exactly what it was. Another birthday tradition, one that she enjoyed greatly, even if she didn’t quite understand it. She opened the box eagerly and found, as she’d expected, two bracelets within.

They were leather, and they appeared to be handmade. They were about as thick as two of her thumbs, and would fit closely around her wrists, like a second skin. The leather was smooth on the side that would go against her skin, and tooled with an intricate design of flowers and leaves on the outside. They were beautiful, and they matched the set her mother was wearing.

“You like them?” Her mother was staring at her eagerly.

“They’re beautiful,” Laurel said, and smiled at her mother. “And it was perfect timing, too, because my old set was starting to wear through.” She looked down at her wrists, at the set her mother had given her last year. The leather was starting to crack at the edges and the design had begun to wear away. She wore them every day, all day, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise.

“These should last you a bit longer,” her mother said. “Dominic made them.” She was smiling at Laurel, the expression softening her face. Her mother had led a hard life, Laurel knew, and that life often showed on her face, and in her drinking. When she smiled like that, with genuine pleasure, it took all her years away, so that Laurel almost felt like she was looking at an older sister instead of a mother.

She shook the thought off. “They’re beautiful. Tell him I said thank you, will you?”

“You could tell him yourself,” her mother said, dangling the words like a fish hook in a river. “You’re twenty-one now, you could come into the bar and have a drink with me and Kaiden.”

Now that the offer had been extended, Laurel wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to take her mother up on it. “I don’t know,” she said slowly, drawing the words out. She glanced at the clock. It was after ten. “It’s awfully late.”

Her mother followed her gaze and let out a surprised little laugh. “How are you my child?” she muttered, sounding like she didn’t mean for it to be overheard. 

Laurel couldn't help but laugh in response. Sometimes she found herself asking that very same question.

“Well, fine then,” her mother said with a dramatic sigh, flopping back onto the couch. “Loser.” She unmuted the television with the push of a button. “But next Saturday, yeah? I’ve got the day off, so we can go out as early as you want, and get back even earlier. How does that sound?”

Laurel stood, stretched, and leaned over to hug her mother. “Sounds like a plan,” she said, and headed upstairs. “But for now, I think I’m going to take a long, hot bath, and maybe get to bed early.”

“Have fun, and please don’t drown!” her mother called after her.

Laurel laughed and headed into her room. She stripped, then went into the bathroom, taking her new bracelets with her. She took the old ones off and set them aside, not quite willing to throw them out, then began running water for her bath. She made it as hot as she could, then slid into the water with a small, happy sigh.

She stayed in until the water turned cold, then drained the tub and filled it again just because it was her birthday and she could. She washed her hair, then drained the tub once more and filled it again. She forced herself to get out once the water went cold for the third time, then started brushing out her hair. It was a tangled mess, but she got it done. She bound it in a loose, sloppy braid, then she brushed her teeth.

Then she opened the box once more. She took the first out and let out a deep breath, turning over her wrists so that she could see the birthmarks the bracelets would cover. She bore one on each wrist, and each blemish went just over her pulse point. They were oddly colored for birthmarks, one being dark black that faded out to an almost-purple at the edges while the other was also black but faded to a pale shade of sort of copper. She’d had them since she was little, and she hated them.

But… it was strange, because it almost looked like they were changing shape a little bit. She brought her right wrist, the one with the black and purple marking on it, up to her face to study it. After several moments of scrutiny, she lowered it and dismissed the thought. Birthmarks, changing? What nonsense.

She put on the new bracelets, then placed her old ones in the box. She carried it back to her room, where she set it on the nightstand. She let out a small, tired sigh, then turned to turn off her light. It was then that she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. She paused, turned her head, and opened her mouth to scream.

Immediately, a leather covered hand was clapped over her mouth and a pair of strong arms pulled her back against a warm, feminine form. She tried to struggle, but whoever was holding her was far too strong.

“I’m very sorry about this, Laurel,” the girl who had caught her attention in the first place said quietly. She was small and slender, topping out at maybe five feet. Her hair was shoulder-length and jagged, and was the color of freshly spilled blood. Her skin was pale, too pale, and her eyes were blood red. When she smiled, Laurel was horrified to see two long, sharp fangs.

“It isn’t anything personal, my dear, it’s just that we rather need you. And we’ve been looking for you for so long that, well, I find myself unwilling to take the time to explain things. I do promise that we’ll do our best to keep this relatively painless.” The girl… woman, vampire, whatever, nodded to the woman holding her. “Chiari, take her.”

Chiari’s grip shifted on Laurel and she had just enough time to scream before her world went black.

* * *

Chiari let out a small sigh once they were onboard the Stormdancer. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?” she asked Skyqueen.

Skyqueen turned to stare at her, her red eyes dark with offense. “I’ve never been more sure of anything,” she bit out. “And I don’t pay you to ask me questions. Now take the girl to the brig. We need to keep her secure to get the demon to do what we need him to.”

Chiari shrugged and nodded. It was true that she wasn’t paid to question her orders, but that didn’t mean that Darana would ever reprimand her for doing so. Maybe she should take a few days off, go and visit her boss, see what he thought.

For all that Unbound had no interest in finding their Hearts, that didn’t make it right to abuse the bond between others. It probably wasn’t enough to break her contract with the Hounds and with Skyqueen, but she thought it might be worth mentioning.

Unbound didn’t deal in madness, after all, and that was what this reeked of.


	3. Chapter Two - Wherein the Hornet's Nest is Kicked and Percy Loses her Fucking Mind

For fuck’s sake, couldn’t she do anything right? It wasn’t like Percy didn’t know better. Her daughter hated it whenever she mentioned her father. She always had. It wasn’t like Percy could blame her. Laurel had never met her father and only ever saw the aftermath of his… death.

Well. His leaving, anyway. Percy had never told Laurel what had happened to her father, had never been able to bear the idea of it, and she supposed that her daughter supposed that he was dead. It was better than the alternative. May the Sleeping God help her if her daughter ever got it in her mind to go looking for her father somehow… Frozenflame was far too dangerous, in all the best ways.

Percy shivered at the thought. She’d never stopped loving him, even when her name wasn’t written on his wrist. His was on hers, and he would always be one of her Hearts, even though he’d walked out on her. Even though the dirty rat bastard had thrown it away. Thrown her away. Fucking asshole, treating her like dirty laundry…

And now the ending theme to the show was playing and she couldn’t even remember what the damned episode had been about. Fucking Laranel. Even when she hadn’t seen him in over twenty years, he still managed to ruin things! Bastard. She turned off the television with an irritated push of a button and tried to fight the urge to throw the remote.

She failed, and it landed harmlessly on carpet several feet away from her. It hadn’t been a particularly violent throw.

She stood and went into the kitchen. In the top cabinet, the one she had to get the stepstool out to get to, was her whiskey. The bottle was a little over half-full, and Percy wasn’t sure, but she thought she might make a dent in the rest of it tonight. She poured herself a shot, and threw it back with an easy toss. It burned going down. She went to pour herself another glass, then considered both the glass and the bottle. With a small shrug, she took a swig straight from the bottle itself.

It was Laurel’s goddamned birthday. She’d worked so fucking hard to keep herself from doing this very thing earlier in the day and now that she’d ruined her daughter’s birthday, she was finding it almost impossible to stop herself. She took another swig of whiskey and wandered back into the living room.

She stared moodily at the blank screen of the television until something jarred her from her thoughts. Had that been a thump from Laurel’s room? What was her daughter doing, anyway? She set the bottle on the table, now more than a bit lighter than it had been, and stood. She’d only just started moving towards the hall to their rooms when Laurel screamed, a sound which abruptly cut off.

Percy broke into a run and crashed through her daughter’s door, fire crackling at her fingertips, just in time to see a swirling vortex close, the remnants of a Porter lying shattered on the floor of her daughter’s room, the air thick with ozone. Her daughter was nowhere to be seen.

Percy dropped to her knees. Her daughter was gone. Laurel was… was… she was gone. The fire at her fingertips extinguished itself and she let out a low, pained noise that choked off into helpless tears. Somebody had taken her daughter.

But who? Why? She hadn’t… she hadn’t involved herself in anything properly Arcosian in decades. Two of them, specifically. She was out of the scene, out of the game, and even when she’d turned herself over to AIRED back when AIRED was even a thing, she’d never given up anyone who might have wanted revenge. She’d only confessed to her own crimes, and hadn’t mentioned any of her old partners, not even really Laranel. Not that he hadn’t been obvious to her parole officer, of course.

So who the hell would take her daughter?

Laurel didn’t even know anything about Arcos! Percy had done everything in her power to keep her daughter away from the nightmare that was Arcos because… because Laurel hadn’t deserved to grow up the way that Percy had. She’d refused… Arcos was a poison that warped anything and anyone it touched, and Laurel had deserved better.

But… but there was one thing she’d never been able to take from her daughter. Her Hearts. Her names. She’d hoped, before Laurel had been born, that she wouldn’t be born with the one thing that would identify her as Arcane-born, the Hearts on her wrists. But they’d been there, and the names…

Wesley had meant nothing to Percy. It was a nice enough name, but it didn’t ring any warning bells.

But Meros… his name… Percy didn’t know who or what Meros was, but she knew that she’d heard the name whispered in shadows, much like she’d once heard Laranel’s whispered. And Arcosians didn’t whisper for anything but monsters. And her daughter, her Laurel, was defenseless as a baby. Percy was little better, when compared to other Arcosians.

Percy had done the only thing she could think of. She covered her daughter’s names in the true Arcosian tradition, and hoped that no one would ever figure it out. Eventually, the names had blurred, as they did when an Arcane-born was left unexposed to Arcosian energies. Percy’s own had started to blur as well, but hers were a much slower process. She’d spent far longer than her daughter had, exposed to such energies, and she hung around other Arcosians at The Merry Maid.

As far as she knew, Laurel had never showed the faded marks to anyone. Even if she had, Percy was betting that most people didn’t know what they were. Which meant that it couldn’t have been because of Meros, whoever he was, that she was taken. And that left two options, both just as disturbing in their own way.

Option one was, of course, revenge. Somebody had figured out that Percy was Firestorm, Firefly, whichever, and had bided their time until, for whatever reason, they felt safe taking Laurel. It wasn’t as though Percy had been a saint; she had in fact been the exact opposite, so that was certainly an option. Why whoever it was had waited so long, when Laurel could potentially be in control of any Elements she had in her possession, Percy couldn't begin to imagine.

Or there was option two, Laranel. He could have found out that Percy had borne his child somehow, and he would have been furious. Probably. The Precursor was difficult to predict at times. His temper, though, was monstrous, and though he’d never directed it towards Percy, she’d certainly seen it in action. If he was angry enough, kidnapping her was the least of the things he could do. It wasn’t like kidnapping was against his moral sensibilities. The only surprising thing was, if it had been him, was that he hadn’t gone after Percy in the attack.

She closed her eyes and raised trembling hands to wipe the tears from her eyes. She was a mess, and she couldn’t afford to be. Somebody, either her ex or an unknown party, had taken her daughter. And even though Percy had been out of the game for many years, that didn’t mean she didn’t remember how to play it.

She forced herself to her feet and took several deep, cleansing breaths. They began shakily, but by the fifth one, were steady and even. She felt a curious sense of calm descending upon her, the kind she used to get before pulling a heist. Her daughter was gone, and she would be damned to hell if she let her stay in any kind of danger.

Not if she could help it.

But she couldn't do it on her own. Percy wasn’t stupid. She was just death-bait. Of all the eight Elements, she had only one under her control, and no Wild Gift or anything else to back it up. She didn’t have a mastery in anything, either. She was nothing in the Arcosian scheme of things. She would need help, and she was pretty sure she knew where to get it.

But first, she went into her bedroom and jerked the closet door open. She tore through her clothes until she found what she was looking floor, on the floor of her closet, behind her clothes and under a pile of things she hadn’t worn in ten years, in a long, flat box. She opened it with hands that didn’t shake, to find her old clothes waiting for her, as fresh as they’d been when she’d taken them off for the last time.

Laranel had purchased them, over a century ago, in an effort to keep her safe. They were enchanted and rune-crafted and treated with potions and just about anything else Laranel had been able to think of. With the knee-length black dragon-skin duster and the matching pants and boots on, Percy was as close to indestructible as a piece of death-bait could be. And, the chainmail shirt, covered by a soft black t-shirt, would protect from a lot of different projectiles.

She hadn’t worn this shit in decades, and was honestly surprised to find that it still fit. Mostly. The pants were just a bit loose on her, implying that she’d lost some weight rather than gaining it in her twenty years of inactivity. Probably because Icy’d had a thing for feeding her the best things Arcos could offer.

Beneath the trench coat, on a belt slung low over her hips, went a series of small pouches, a sheath, and one holster. The pouches contained a handful of things that were irreplaceable in Arcos: several different vials of poisons, a few magical grenades, some old Porters whose enchantments had worn out a century ago but were still pretty enough to be sellable, an enchanted dagger that could cut through almost anything, and an enchanted gun that would get her into more trouble than it would get her out of if she pulled it on the wrong being. In the last pouch, Percy was amused to discover that her never-ending stash of cigarettes was still intact.

She pulled one out, lit it with a flick of her fingers, and took a drag. Her eyes closed in bliss. Over twenty fucking years since she’d had one of those, and they hadn’t lost their punch at all. Then she began to move, slowly and carefully, back out to the hallway. She hadn’t remembered how heavy all this shit was, and how awkward it was to move in.

Hopefully it would come back to her before it got her killed.

Now, she needed to go get help. Because, even as powerful as all her gear was, it couldn't compare to having a couple of real powerhouses on her side. Any number of beings were still more than capable of just swatting her aside as she was, Laranel included.

And Kaiden, of all people, would absolutely help her get her daughter back. He knew what it was like to lose a child to Arcos.

* * *

The Merry Maid was almost never busy. Honestly, Percy was never entirely sure about how Kaiden kept the place afloat, but he seemed to manage okay. He’d kept it up and running for the past fifteen years, so she supposed it wasn’t going under anytime soon.

When she walked in that night, the place was almost empty. There were three or four regulars chilling the back corner with a card game of something, probably poker. They looked to be gambling with something she didn’t care to look too closely at. It was glittering oddly in the dim lighting, though, so probably not Mundane. It didn’t look like they were causing trouble, though, so she brushed it off.

Instead, she approached the bar. Kaiden glanced up at her, then back down at the book he was reading. Then his black eyes widened and he jerked his head up once more. They were disturbing eyes, given that he had neither pupils nor whites to them. They were simply solid black. His skin was dark bronze, and he had delicately pointed ears that poked up through his short black hair and gave away his elven heritage. 

His eyes, however, weren’t his most striking feature, nor were his ears. His most striking feature was the slightly reptilian structure of his face, coupled with the blood-red scales that covered half of that oddly-structured face. Percy had seen him shirtless more than a few times, and naked as well, and she knew that the scales covered more than half of his torso and could also be found in other, interesting places.

Kaiden was one of the few half-dragons in existence, and the only one to be borne of an Elven mother. When in public, Kaiden was never seen without a hood of some sort, normally attached to a hoodie. He liked to cover his arms as well.

“I haven’t seen you dressed like that in a long time, Percy,” he said conversationally as she approached the bar. “What’s up?” He set a shot of whiskey in front of her without being prompted, and raised an eyebrow at her when she pushed it away.

“Somebody took my daughter, Kaiden.” Her voice shook when she spoke, and she fought to keep herself from screaming it out. “Somebody took my daughter. She screamed, and by the time I got to her room, all I could see were the remnants of the Porter and the fading vortex. She was gone.”

Kaiden drew in a deep breath, and when he let it out, a hint of smoke curled from between his lips. “Cass!” he barked, and a blonde head peeked out from the kitchens. “I need you to take the bar for me. You might have it for a few nights.”

“Only for two,” the blonde, Cassander, said quietly. He slipped off his apron and came out of the kitchen entirely. He offered Percy a small smile. “You’ll find her. I know it.”

Percy tried not to drop her gaze and failed. Oracles were creepy, and Cassander was creepier than most. His visions were entirely random, but almost always accurate. If he said she would find her daughter, then she would. And, since he’d given a time frame, probably in the next two days.

But he hadn’t said what her condition would be…

“Any clue where we should start looking?” Kaiden asked.

Cassander made a small noise, and after a beat of silence, said, “Sorry,” with a shake of his head.

“It’s fine.” Percy tried to smile. It was shaky and weak, but it was something. “The reassurance is appreciated.” Oracles were awful, but Cassander was nice enough. It was easy to forget that he was an Oracle when he wasn’t speaking of the future.

“Take care of the bar, and yourself, Cassander. Don’t hesitate to bounce anyone who gives you trouble.”

Cassander nodded as Kaiden spoke. “I’ll be fine, Kaiden. Go.” He rolled his eyes a little. “It isn’t like I haven’t watched the bar for you dozens of times before.”

“Yes, but normally Percy is here with you, and you’ll have to rely on the wards.” Still, Kaiden hopped over the bar and landed nimbly next to Percy.

“I’ve handled worse,” Cassander said firmly. “I’ll be fine. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Percy muttered.

“Let’s take this upstairs to Dominic, and we’ll see if my dear social butterfly can give us some advice,” Kaiden said, and wrapped an arm around Percy’s shoulders.

She didn’t need to be steered, but she leaned into him anyway as they walked. She had been up to the apartment above the bar several times and so was entirely unsurprised to feel the wards tingle over her skin. She’d never worn her battle-gear before, though, and so was surprised when Kaiden had to stop and key her into the wards to get her through. This involved pricking her finger and a soft murmur of a spell that she couldn’t quite catch.

Magic, proper magic, with magic words and everything, had never really been Percy’s forte. None of the other types of casting had ever really appealed to her.

When they entered the apartment, Dominic was waiting in a pair of soft grey sweatpants and nothing else. He had porcelain skin and ass-length silver hair, coupled with bright purple eyes. Normally, he had a sweet smile on his face, but tonight the Incubus looked rather grim. “Kaiden Spoke to me and told me that you were coming up, and the reason why. We’ll find her, Persephone, I promise.”

Mindspeech. Percy hated it, mostly because she was jealous of it. How cool would it be to be able to speak in her mind and have someone else hear it? There were lots of Talents and Gifts and Elements that were cool,though, and Percy had none of them.

She pushed aside her jealousy and instead focused on the rage simmering inside of her. Now wasn’t the time to bemoan her lack of Gifts. Now was the time to use what she had and get her daughter back, and Kaiden and Dominic were the only two she could imagine would actually help her with that.

“Where should we start?” she asked simply.

Dominic smiled at that, the expression grim. “I had an idea about that, actually. Have you heard of the Allseeing?”

* * *

Lots of people wrote to his Master, but very few could actually get past Laranel’s very formidable personal wards. Which was why it was such a surprise to see the letter appear in a whirl of fire and wind, and then land on Laranel’s head.

Irien opened his mouth to volunteer to look the letter over for anything untoward, but Laranel was already opening it, already reading it with darting eyes and a growing grin.

“Master?” he asked quietly, a little concerned. Master normally wasn’t so happy to get strange letters from strange people.

“We need to head to the Nest,” Laranel told him, his grin growing. “We have someone to meet there soon.”

They were in the middle of a job, a well-paying one, but Irien didn’t protest. Instead he simply smiled sweetly and said, “As you say, Master.” Even if he didn’t understand what was going on, surely anything that made Laranel happy couldn’t be a bad thing, could it?


	4. Chapter Three - Wherein the Hounds Introduce Meros to the Reason He's Going to Cooperate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the updated tags, please.

When Meros opened his eyes, the cell he was trapped in was much the same as it always was: dull, creaky, and boring. The Hounds were never kind to him, though lately they’d seemed to be regarding eternal boredom as a fitting punishment for what he’d done. He hoped that it would stay that way. He would take boredom over anything else they could do.

He could make things easy on himself, he knew that. He could do what they wanted him to, and in doing so, he would guarantee his own death. He’d been sent to kill them, to destroy them as revenge for something, for some attack, the details of which he’d never known. His was not to question, but was instead to do as bidden.

He was a monster, summoned and bound, and what he’d wanted had never factored into his orders.

His summoners had sent him to destroy the Hounds, and their Skyqueen, and he’d gotten himself captured instead. It was just their luck that they had the one thing he couldn’t escape no matter what his orders were. Even more absurd was the fact that they’d never figured it out, in the three years that they’d had him. They had no idea of the power they could wield over him, and Meros was determined to keep it that way.

If they didn’t understand, they couldn’t do anything more to him than they’d already done, and while they’d done terrible things to him, it was nothing he hadn’t suffered before. If he gave in to their demands, and he somehow miraculously survived, then he would be returned to his home when the summoning dispelled, and he would have lost his status. He’d be at the bottom once more. If he went back there, if he returned home… He couldn’t.

He’d done it once before, when he was much younger, clawed his way to the top. He couldn’t do it a second time. He didn’t have the strength for it, or the stomach.

He wasn’t that monster anymore.

And the tortures of the Hounds and their Skyqueen, terrible as they were, were nothing compared to what awaited him if he was sent back from where he’d come.

A sound at the door to his cell caught his attention, and he found himself staring at the pretty little pet, Chiari. She was the one who tended to bring him food, and she was the nicest of the three remaining officers, if she even counted as such.

“Mistress Skyqueen bids me fetch you, Master Demon.” Her voice was light and clear, and her smile was soft and almost sad. It made the hair on the back of Meros’ neck stand on end. She was frightened. She’d never looked that way before.

Meros forced himself to his feet. “As always, my dear, I am at your Mistress’ disposal.” He offered her his wrists, already cuffed by huge, clunky blocks of metal with runes carved into him that glowed with a steady black light. They were vile things, the shackles which held him. They stole his power and kept him from doing anything without Skyqueen’s approval.

He hated them more than anything.

Chiari didn’t laugh, which wasn’t like her at all. She was terrified, not of him, but for him. Whatever Skyqueen had in mind was sure to be terrible. She wouldn’t meet his eyes as she carefully attached chains to his right wrist, then his left. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, the words barely audible.

“It’s not your fault,” he said, his own voice trembling. He knew that she, an Unbound, was far more powerful than Skyqueen or any of her Hounds, but he knew that the pet was permanently contracted to them, and that she would never betray her order. He would never ask that of her.

They moved relatively quickly through the hold of the massive ship, and then they were up on the deck. He ignored the disorienting grey fog that surrounded them. They were on a Path through the Unknown, even if they were flying high above it. The Skyqueen would never risk her ship in the Unknown off a Path; she wasn’t nearly foolish enough for that. So even if he couldn’t see the Path, he knew that they were on it.

He didn’t need to fear being lost forever in the void of the Unknown, which was good. There were too many other things for him to fear at the moment.

Just outside of the door to Skyqueen’s cabin, Chiari stopped and turned to face him. “Meros,” she whispered, her voice small. She still wouldn’t meet his eyes. “She has a way to make you work, now. And it’s going to be awful. So just… just be careful, okay?”

She always had a way to make him work, she’d just never realized it, and she’d never researched the shackles she’d used on him closely enough to understand. What else could she have? The thought was terrifying. “Okay,” he said, his voice just as small as Chiari’s. He searched her face for any hint of reassurance, but when he didn’t find it, he looked down at the floor.

Together, the two of them entered the cabin.

Meros’ eyes were immediately drawn to the figure suspended in chains from the ceiling of the cabin. She was a scrawny little thing with long red hair pulled into a messy braid. Her face was pale and dusted with freckles. She was pretty enough, he supposed, though nothing spectacular, but that could have been the pajamas she wore and the slackness of her unconscious face. The two bracelets on her wrists gave her away as Arcane-born, and the way that the sight of her pulled at him in a way he’d never expected gave away far more.

Gods below, he hoped he was wrong.

“Do you know who this is, Meros?” Skyqueen’s voice was light and silky, her blood-tinged eyes twinkling with amusement. She stroked the girl’s slack face with pale fingers and offered Meros a light, almost confiding smile.

“An Arcos-born girl with a strange taste in bedtime jewelry?” He shrugged, keeping his voice as casual as he could. If he didn’t give it away, then maybe… “Do I care who she is?”

Skyqueen’s smile grew, a hint of fang peeking out. “This is Laurel, Meros.”

Meros’ heart dropped. She knew. How did she know? How could she? How had they even thought to look for her? He’d never… he’d never shown anyone. Demons weren’t supposed to… His breathing picked up and his vision blurred a bit. He forced himself to look down, to try and calm himself. He wanted to believe that she was just guessing, but…

She knew. She had to know, even if he didn’t understand how she knew.

“What’s the matter, Meros?” Now her voice was definitely mocking him so light and happy and cheerful. “Did you think that we wouldn’t figure something out? Imagine our surprise when we went to consult an Oracle and we found out that you really do have a Heart? Oh, we were all so very shocked. But Meros, dear, sweet Meros, we went and found her for you! Aren’t you pleased?”

“Please don’t hurt her,” he managed to choke out. He could barely speak through the shock, his voice coming out breathy and desperate. He ached. How had they found her? Damn the Oracle, whoever they were!

What Oracle would dare cross a demon like this, anyway… nevermind. That was a stupid thought. There was only one Oracle out there who could have possibly known that he had Hearts, much less who they were. And the Allseeing would have given up those names in a heartbeat if it would serve him later.

At least the Oracle had only given up Laurel, and not Wesley, whoever he was. Maybe, if Meros was very lucky, there was a method to Allseeing’s madness that would serve Meros as well as the Oracle and would get him and Laurel out of this alive.

He’d never been very lucky, though.

“Meros, dear, sweet Meros, whatever made you jump to the conclusion that I would hurt her?” Skyqueen’s fingers danced over Laurel’s cheek once more in a tender parody of a caress. Her lips curled back, baring her teeth entirely. “Surely you don’t think I would do something so cruel. It isn’t like you killed my own Heart or anything like that, is it?”

“But he did, Skyqueen,” the vampire’s other Heart whispered, her voice shaking. She went by Soothsong, but he didn’t know her actual name.

“Oh, pet, you’re right. He did.” Skyqueen laughed, poison thick in her laughter. “But I’m not like you, Meros. I would only hurt this pretty little thing if he you didn’t give me another choice.”

Meros fought down an infuriated snarl. The minute she’d begun to speak, Meros had seen the game. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew exactly what she wanted. And of course, she’d won this battle, and she knew it. Meros would do anything to protect one of his Hearts, even if it meant he’d go back there.

Soothsong was standing now, her arms curled around Laurel’s fragile body. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to her, would you, demon? A fragile little Mundane-born like this, and you’ve waited so long for her to be born, you must be horrified at the idea that you could lose her so quickly.” Soothsong’s grin was vicious. “And for something that you could easily control, if you put your mind to it. My heart aches for you, Meros, truly it does.” 

Her, Meros could look in the eye. He stared at her as he said, “Understand this, Hound: If you hurt her, I will destroy you. There is no force in any realm of existence that could spare you the power of my wrath. I will rip out the heart of your remaining Heart, and while it’s still bloody and beating, I will present it to my own. And then I will flay the skin from your flesh, and only after I’ve dipped you in salt will I kill you. Am I understood?” His voice came out in a low, soft growl, and they were slurred enough that he knew that his teeth had come out.

In her chains, in Soothsong’s arms, Laurel began to shift. She opened her eyes, and Meros saw only a hint of green like grass, like a meadow, before Skyqueen bit out, “Chiari, knock her out!”

Laurel opened her mouth to say something, but didn’t get the chance to before the Elven Unbound had her unconscious once more.

“If you’ve hurt her…” Meros trailed off, but only because he didn’t want to put any ideas in any of the bitches’ heads. They were vicious enough without his encouragement.

Skyqueen smiled sweetly at him and curtsied. “Oh, Meros, I already told you that she was perfectly safe in our care. And I do mean that, really, I do. In spite of what you must think, we’re not monsters here.”

“Your so-called care lacks a great deal in the way of actual care.” Meros shook his head. They were going in circles, and this would get him nowhere. They had his Heart, and it was impossible to think with her sitting right there, in so much danger because of him. “Tell me what you want from me before you lose your temper. And Skyqueen, be specific.”

Skyqueen drew herself up to her full height, which wasn’t terribly impressive, and hissed at him. “Kneel, Demon, and ask me properly. She rested her fingertips with their sharp, vicious claws against Laurel’s face, drawing a drop of blood. “Do so, or I’ll make sure she never forgets her time in our care.”

Meros heard a low rumbling and realized that it was coming from him. He was growling again, and he couldn’t bring himself to stop. He tried to swallow the noise, and succeeded finally with some difficulty. Then, he forced himself to do as she asked. With fury holding his muscles stiff, Meros forced himself down on one knee and dropped his head in a gesture of supplication. His long black hair fell forward to cover his face. He forced himself not to snarl and took another deep breath before asking quietly, “Please, Mistress, tell me how best I can serve you.”

He glanced up, and she raised an eyebrow and gave an imperious gesture demanding that he continue.

Meros swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, and called on every bit of pretty language he’d ever picked up when placating a demon more powerful than himself. “It would be this humble demon’s honor to do whatever it is that you require of him. I beg of you, please do me the great honor of being allowed to perform a service in my Lady’s name.” The words tasted foul, like meat left rotting in the sun.

When she smiled, he hated her more than he’d ever hated Lucifer himself.

“There’s a good demon,” Skyqueen breathed, sounding more pleased than he’d ever heard. “It’s almost as though we’ve tamed you completely, my dear Meros.” She stepped forward then, her steps dainty and light, and she patted him on the head. Like a dog. “My orders are thus, dear demon: Find those who contracted you to destroy us. Kill them slowly,and make certain that they are aware that I was the one who sent you.” She paused, cocking her head to the side as though considering something. The smile on her face turned gruesome. “Actually, no.”

“Lini?” Soothsong sounded almost frightened, and she approached Lini with shaking hands. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Our revenge…”

“My sweet, my Mali, never you fear.” The vampire took Soothsong’s hands and pressed kisses to their palms. “I’ve just come up with the most brilliant idea, that’s all. Why should we have Meros kill them? It’s simply too easy an out for them, and far too easy a task for Meros to accomplish. Instead, Meros, I would have you do this: Find the people they hold most dear, and kill them. Slowly or quickly, it matters not. Just make certain that the one who survives, the one who contracted you, knows exactly why you’re killing their loved ones.”

Meros breath left him in a shuddering sigh as the cruelty of her words hit him. “And if there is no one whom they hold dear, my lady?” he asked, the words bitter in his mouth.

“Then the first of my orders applies. Kill them slowly. Make them suffer for every minute they remain in our world.” She paused, tapping her foot against the wood of the floor as she considered. “And, Meros, when it is finished, when you have killed them or made them suffer, return here to us. I may have further use for you.”

“As my lady wills it.” He stood, swept into a bow, and took the Porter handed to him. He let them remove his shackles, and then, without stopping to consider how much he didn’t want to do what he was about to, and without thinking about how much he wanted the girl in chains with Skyqueen to be safe, he threw the Porter to the ground and activated it.

* * *

Once Meros had disappeared to perform his grisly task, Chiari excused herself, her heart pounding, rage making her head swim. What was Lini thinking? How could she do this?

This was why the Unbound were what they were. This was why they foreswore their Hearts, and why they killed them if they found them. Hearts were weaknesses, and getting close to them only led to sorrow in the long run. Look what they were making Meros do? Look what Thera’s loss had driven Lini to? It was maddening!

She slipped into her small cabin and closed her eyes. She wanted to call Darana, now more than ever, but when she attempted to contact him, she only got a busy signal. That could mean any number of things, but what it typically meant was that their Bound One was in a snit and was refusing to run the order once more.

Chiari hated the games Darana played with their lives, with ignoring their calls and acting like he was too important to handle them, but hers was not to question.

She took a deep breath. Hers was not to question. She was a tool of the Bound One, and while she submitted willingly, and in doing so earned her freedom and her Unbound elements, her job was to be loyal. And being loyal meant not questioning her orders, at least, not until the job was done.

Chiari took another deep breath.

Her phone rang, and she answered it. “Chiari,” she said, her voice cool.

“What do you need?” It was Darana, and he sounded more irritated than anything else.

“I have concerns about Skyqueen,” Chiari said. “But I’ll watch and observe for now.”

There was silence on the line for what felt like forever. “The Allseeing asked me to place you there,” he said, his words slow and certain. “He told me that you should act however you feel best while you’re under Skyqueen, when you came to me with doubts, and our Order would not be embarrassed by you. As always, I don’t understand what the cryptic bastard means, but there you go.”

Chiari breathed out. “There I go,” she agreed, relaxing with her exhale. “Thank you, Bound One. You honor me with your advice.”

“Thank you, Unbound. You serve with your obedience.”

The phone went dead in her hand, and Chiari left her cabin once more, feeling a bit more settled than she had before. She had options. She could do what she thought was best.

The Bound One told her so.

For the first time in what felt like forever, but couldn’t have been more than a few hours, Chiari felt a smile creeping over her face and she didn’t bother to suppress it. Options were a form of freedom she truly enjoyed, and she thanked the Bound One for giving them to her.

Truly, it was good to be Unbound.

* * *

Meros had been hired by a group of four men, this much he knew. He knew their names, he knew their weaknesses, and he knew that they had all four been victimised by the Hounds at one point or another. Two had had their businesses destroyed and their merchandise stolen, and the other two had never been clear on what the Hounds had done, but they’d been certain that Skyqueen and her crew were responsible. 

In all honesty, considering that the Hounds were pirates and thieves who were indiscriminate in their attacking of caravans which struck their fancy, Meros had been surprised that more than the four of them hadn’t contracted with him.

Their orders to Meros had been clear and simple: he was to kill anyone who made up the group known as the Hounds. Meros had managed to kill three of the officers, including the bard, whose true name had been Thera, for whom he suffered now. With the three women, he’d killed more than a dozen of the Hounds’ crew members. And then he’d been captured.

The moment he’d been captured, if they were smart, the four men who had contracted him would have warded themselves against retaliation. For all of his power, and he did have a significant amount of it, there were still lines that a demon such as himself couldn’t cross, particularly holy ones. The men who’d summoned him should have known that.

Unfortunately for the men who’d contracted with him, they weren’t exactly what one might consider bright.

The first of the four men was already dead. he’d accrued one too many gambling debts in his time within Arcos. He’d been killed over a year ago by his debtors, been beaten severely then hung outside of their bar by the tips of his toes to die slowly. Apparently it had been a week or more until the man had succumbed.

Meros knew of his death through the contract itself, and through the lack of binding from the man. The details he found from the debtors in question, who were pleased to answer Meros’ questions about the incident.

The second man was still alive, and he had taken the proper precautions and had warded his home. He had not, however, warded his person, and he was alone in the world. Meros simply waited until he left his home, then he swooped down, literally, and took him to a quiet place to torture the man to death. He wasn’t particularly careful with the location of his cuts or the force of his blows, so the man only lasted an hour before Meros misjudged enough to kill him.

In the past, when he’d been a loyal demon, he could have made someone last a year or more when he tortured them to death. His heart, however, wasn’t in this assignment. He suspected that Skyqueen knew that.

The third man was also alive, and he had unfortunately located his two Hearts. That meant, by order of the monster who know controlled him, he had to kill the Hearts and leave the man alive. Since all three of them were as corrupt as any Hound, Meros found that he didn’t particularly mind the task. 

He came upon the three of them as they were in the middle of raping a young Incubus, one who’d only just come into their powers of lust. He freed the young being, then let them watch as he dispatched two of their three attackers. The third, the man who’d contracted him, was left little more than a sobbing wreck. 

The Incubus agreed that the punishment was fitting and went on their way, and Meros did as requested and made sure that his former contract holder understood that he’d been sent by Skyqueen and her Hounds.

It was the fourth and final man who gave him the most trouble, who broke his heart. He was neither married, nor had he found either of his Hearts. what he had instead was a beautiful young daughter, whom he clearly doted on. This man had cleaned up his life and was living as an alchemist in a small province called Greenhaven. He ran his shop, made potions, and helped his daughter learn her alphabet.

She had long, wild brown hair and sparkling blue eyes. When Meros appeared before her in the small house she shared with her father, for he’d never warded the house, she smiled so sweetly for him that he felt his heart shattering. “I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely. His cheeks were wet with tears.

“Why are you crying?” The girl’s smile brightened and she reached fearlessly forward and patted his knee. “Don’t cry. You should smile. Smiling means you’re happy, and you should always try to be happy, even when things are at their worst. That’s what Daddy says.”

“Oh, Sleeping Gods, you’re the one we hired—” Her father was staring at Meros, his voice choked with horror.

“I am,” Meros agreed, nodding. He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “As you know, I was captured before I could complete my task.” Meros closed his eyes against the pain in his heart and hoped that this man was strong enough to stop him, but he already knew that he wasn’t. If he had been, he never would have contracted with Meros in the first place. “I’ve been sent to take vengeance on behalf of the Hounds, against you, in return for you hostile acts against them.” He opened his eyes again, though it took most of his strength.

“But that’s not fair!” He already looked defeated, and he stepped forward with his face contorted in a mask of desperation. “We only hired you because they hurt us first!”

Meros took a deep breath. “I understand that,” he said, his voice as even as it could be. He swooped the little girl into his arms and held her carefully. “I cannot change my orders, no matter how much I disagree with them.”

“Please, Meros, don’t do this,” the man begged, falling to his knees. “I never wanted to hurt them. But I did, and I understand that, so please. Just… Just kill me, please. Do it however you want. Her mother will take her in, she’ll grow up to be just fine. But don’t… don’t make me watch you do this, please.”

Meros bowed his head and looked down at the little girl, who was still smiling so brightly at him. She’d taken one of the feathers that had drifted down from his wing and was playing with it. It was clear that she didn’t know what was going on, because her smile hadn’t wavered once. He hoped she never understood.

He closed his eyes, and he quickly and carefully snapped the little girl’s neck, hating himself as he did so. He flinched from the sound it made and lowered her lifeless corpse carefully to the ground.

“In the attempt to perform the task you gave me, I killed the Heart of the Skyqueen. She ordered me to kill your most precious person, and to leave you alive with the agony of it. I’m… so sorry. Sleeping God awaken, I’m so sorry.” He backed up a step. “She has my Heart. I had no choice.”

The man looked up, his eyes burning, even as his shoulders shook with sobs. “A demon like you has no Heart,” he spat, and his eyes dropped to his daughter’s corpse. “How could you, and still do that?”

When Meros left, his heart broken, the man was still sobbing.

* * *

He reappeared in a swirl of sulfur and black sparkle, standing in front of the Skyqueen. She was at her desk, reading over something or other, and Laurel was no longer in her cabin. Meros hoped she was still alive, and that Skyqueen at least would honor her bargain in that, though he knew there was a chance that she wouldn’t.

Skyqueen’s eyes rose at the sight of him. “That was quick,” she said. She leaned back in her chair, studying him. “Did you finish that quickly? It concerns me, you know, the idea that you might have shirked your duties. It would be terrible to punish you.”

Meros shuddered. “I did as I was asked,” he said, looking down. He couldn’t meet her eyes. “The first was dead already, killed to pay back unpaid debts. The second had no one to care for him, and I tortured him before killing him. Perhaps I was a bit exuberant with this, and he died faster than perhaps he should have. The third had found both his Hearts, and I killed them both and left him a sobbing wreck on the filthy ground I found them on. The fourth and final man had a daughter, whose neck I snapped in front of him. He was devastated, and he begged me to kill him instead.” This, Meros related in a voice as close to passionless as he could manage. If he allowed himself any emotion, he would break down in front of her, and Skyqueen would undoubtedly mock him relentlessly for his grief.

If he let himself feel anything, he would fall apart. He refused to give her the satisfaction.

“I suppose that will have to do,” she said with a sigh. She picked up her pen once more. “Chiari! Return Meros to his cell!”

The pretty little Unbound approached with a heartbroken expression on her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to him as she bound his wrists with the awful shackles once more. Then she attached his chains and led him from the cabin.

Meros didn’t struggle. He couldn’t find the energy to do so, not even when she returned him to his cell and locked the door. Normally, he would at least try something, but now? He didn’t deserve his freedom. He was a monster, through and through. Every bit the demon he’d always fought being, ever since he’d realized that was an option.

Chiari whispered once more, “I’m so sorry. I know you didn’t want to do this.” She pressed a soft kiss to his forehead, then she backed out of the cell, closing the barred door behind her.

Once she was gone, once he knew that he was alone and that Skyqueen couldn’t hear him, Meros curled in on himself and began to sob. He wanted nothing more than to wrap his wings around himself, but he’d never shown them to the Hounds, and he wouldn’t start now, not when a little girl who’d played with his feathers right before he’d killed her had been the last to see them.

He couldn’t have said how long he cried before an unfamiliar but sweet voice called out, “Hello?”


	5. Chapter Four - Wherein Laurel Gets Frustrated Being Held in Chains and Makes Some Friends

Laurel woke up.

She wasn’t exactly surprised that she woke up, given that that was what normally happened. She was confused, though. She still had no idea what happened, why that woman had been in her room, why they’d taken her. And, most urgently, she didn’t know why her wrists and arms felt like they were being pulled from her body.

She shifted, trying to alleviate the uncomfortable feeling, only to realize that she was hanging from her arms. Since she had no upper body strength at the best of times, she found this to be particularly uncomfortable.

As though the pain had woken something within her, she began to notice other things. The scent of ozone, for one thing, like the smell right before a thunderstorm hit. It was sharp, clearer than she’d ever smelled it before in her life. There was a sound, too, a low and rumbling noise that gradually translated into words that were more than a little frightening.

The words, the ones promising to rip out someone’s heart, were vicious. Laurel had never heard talk like that, not while genuinely believing the person speaking was capable of doing it.

She opened her eyes, but she found that she couldn’t quite get her gaze to focus on anything. The room was filled with blurry figures, several close to her, and one further away. She’d barely managed to get her eyes all the way open before the woman from before was snapping, “Chiari, knock her out!”

Laurel opened her mouth to protest, mostly because she didn’t want to be knocked out again, since it hurt. Instead, there was a sharp pain at the base of her skull and the world went dark once more.

* * *

For the second time in what she hoped was a short period of time, Laurel woke up. Her arms were still sore, but she no longer felt like she was being pulled apart at the joints. When she tested it, which she did gingerly, she found that she could at least move. She was lying horizontally rather than being suspended from a ceiling.

Progress. Of a sort, anyway. Although now she was stuck in what appeared to be a small jail cell, and her wrists and ankles were bound together.

“Well that’s just fabulous,” Laurel muttered. She rolled her eyes and stood, slowly, keeping herself from pitching over, though it was a chore.

It was then that she heard it. Somebody was crying. Really, really crying, in a way that she herself had never had cause to. He, because she thought he was a he, was sobbing like his heart had been shattered, and Laurel was blessed to have never been so grief-stricken before. It broke her heart to hear it.

“Hello?” she called, and the sobbing quieted, though it didn’t start. “Are you okay out there?” What a stupid question. Of course he wasn’t okay. She hobbled to the front of her cell, where she could just make out another cell opposite her own, where she was pretty sure the tears had been coming from.

“I’m fine.” The voice was dark and low, grinding a bit against her ears, and it made her shiver. Not just because it sounded amazing, but because she remembered it from earlier, making violent threats. “Are you?” the stranger asked. He sounded concerned about her, which, given the way he’d been sobbing only moments ago, had Laurel confused.

She saw no harm in admitting it. “I’m confused, and my head hurts a little.” She shrugged, even though she didn’t know if he could see her or not. She definitely couldn’t see him, she didn’t think. “Do you know where we are?”

The laugh was bitter and angry and almost made her heart hurt more than the sobs from earlier had. “We’re in the custody of the Hounds, child.”

Laurel’s brow furrowed. “The Hounds?” she echoed. She looked around her cell and noted the rough wooden floor, the angled wall at her back, the length of sturdy, knotted rope piled in the corner, and the slight rocking motion that she was only just now noticing. “And the Hounds are… what, pirates? Are we on a boat of some kind?” That made as much sense as anything else, she supposed.

This time the laugh seemed a bit more genuine, if a bit condescending. “Oh, little girl, you have no idea. Pirates of some sort, absolutely. They’re vicious and dangerous, and I would take it as a personal favor if you were to do your best not to irritate them while we’re both in their care.”

Laurel wrinkled her nose at the other cell. “I’m not stupid,” she muttered, feeling a bit like maybe she was. “It isn’t like I’m going to deliberately antagonize the people who kidnapped me right out of my bedroom. If they could do that, god only knows what else they could do. I don’t even know how they got in there…” Laurel shook her head. One minute, she was sure that she’d been alone. The next, the strange red-eyed woman had been there.

She could hear the shrug in the stranger’s voice when he replied. “They’re probably using Porters. They’re expensive, but the Hounds have enough coin that they don’t need to worry about minor things like cost.”

Laurel let out a small huff of confusion. “Who’s Porters? Some kind of master thief? I mean, not that it would take a master thief to break into my house, but still, I didn’t hear anything at all before they were there. You would think I would have heard something.”

There was a soft noise, almost like hushed laughter, from the other cell. It was a more genuine sound, and even though it was directed at her, Laurel couldn’t help but be pleased with it. “You really are Mundane-born, aren’t you? You know, when I was younger, I never would have imagined being given a Heart like you, little girl.”

The word made Laurel ache, though she couldn’t have explained why. What did he mean, given a Heart? She didn’t understand anything, not what it meant to be Mundane-born, nothing, and she was all alone here, and she didn’t even have her mother…

Oh, god. Her mother. What would her mother be doing? She would be so worried!

To her horror, tears welled up in her eyes. Her breathing sped up, and she couldn’t stop the tiny noise she let out. Her poor mother! She would drink herself to death, especially since it had happened while she was sitting right downstairs. She’d never forgive herself!

“Oh no no no no no! Don’t do that, please, I’m sorry, please don’t cry. I never know what to do with a crying woman,” the man in the other cell begged, sounding frantic. “Seriously, please stop crying. I didn’t mean to upset you. Of course you don’t know what a Porter is, how could you? And there’s nothing wrong with being Mundane-born. Lady Evans was, rumors say, and she was one of the most terrifying beings to walk the Known and Unknown. You’re perfect, just the way you are, and I can teach you anything you need to know, I swear it!”

He sounded so desperate, so upset at her sorrow, and that combined with his babbling was enough to distract Laurel from her horror and her sorrow. She managed to get herself under control, and she even managed to smile a little.

“That’s better,” he breathed. “I can see you smiling, and I’d rather you laugh at my stupidity than cry at my cruelty. Crying never gets anything done, not anywhere, and especially not here.” He paused for a minute, then said hesitantly. “Meros, by the way. Since you haven’t asked. My name is Meros. And you’re Laurel.”

“How did you know my name?” Laurel asked. Then she reconsidered her question. He’d probably gotten it from the woman who’d taken him, but… “For that matter, how did the woman who took me know my name?”

The man, Meros, sighed. It was a heavy sound that made Laurel’s heart ache again. He sounded like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders when he sighed like that. “They took you because of me. Because… okay. Look, you’re Mundane-born, right? So I don’t expect that you’ve noticed your birthmarks, or realized that there was anything interesting about them. But… well, there is something interesting about them.”

“My birthmarks?” Laurel lifted her chained hands and found that the manacles binding her arms were just above her wrists, just above the bracelets her mother had given her. “You mean the ones on my wrists, right?”

“Those are the ones, yes.” Meros sounded relieved that she already knew what he was talking about. “Those birthmarks, they’ve always been indistinct blobs, maybe with a bit of color to them. What do they look like now?”

“I’m… wearing bracelets,” Laurel said, studying them. Could she get them off while chained up? Probably not. “I don’t think I can look at them. But I’d imagine that they look the same as they always do, like blobs.”

“You…” Meros paused to clear his throat. “You would be wrong. I think. If you can, take your bracelets off and let me know what you see.”

Laurel considered the request, then she shrugged and gave it her best shot. It was hard to take them off, considering the way her arms were bound, but she managed after a bit of struggle. On her right wrist, where the black and purple mark had been, was instead a black and purple word that read… “Your name,” she breathed, confused. She glanced at the other to find Wesley written there.

“That’s right,” Meros said. “Don’t say the other out loud, please, and now that you’ve seen those, you should put your bracelets back on. Going without them in Arcos is a terrible idea.”

Laurel obeyed Meros reflexively, mostly because her wrists felt naked without the bracelets, but once they were back on, she shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why do I have your name, and someone else’s name, on my wrists? What happened to my birthmarks?”

“The names were always there, it’s just that…” Meros stopped, and she heard in suck in a large breath. “Okay, little girl, I’m just going to say it. They needed to be exposed to magic, proper magic, in order for them to take on their proper form. Exposure to a sufficient amount of Arcosian energy, which saturates the realm and is carried within every Arcane-born citizen, is what makes them appear as names rather than birthmarks.”

Laurel got very quiet as she considered what he’d just said. Then, fighting down panic that wanted to rear up within her, she asked, “So, the woman that took me. She’s magic?”

“She’s a vampire,” Meros said. “And yes, she’s magic. But you… You don’t need to worry about her. So long as I cooperate with her, you’ll be safe. And if I keep doing what she says, perhaps she’ll even be kind enough to let you go at some point.”

Laurel had never been stupid. “She’s using me to control you. She threatens to hurt me, and then you do what she wants. Right?”

“That’s right.” Meros sighed. “No matter how little I want to do it. She has me bound with these damned shackles, which are bad enough, but now she has you too, and so she has even more power. There’s nothing I can do to defy her, not anymore.”

Laurel turned those words over and over in her head, considering what she’d just heard. “Are you human?” she asked, a little bluntly. The fact that he still hadn’t stepped into the light led her to believe that he wasn’t, and some of how he spoke… “You literally cannot defy her, right? Is that something to do with what you are?”

“You’re right,” Meros said. He laughed, the sound a little broken, and a lot tired. Cloth rustled across from her, and then Meros was stepping forward into the light.

Laurel let out a small shriek before she could manage to stifle the noise. He was… different, that was the word. His skin was a pale shade of purple, and his ears were delicately pointed like she’d always imagined an elf’s might be, though his were a bit large. His hair was long, longer than hers even, and licked its way down his back like a wild black flame. His eyes were dark red, different from the vampire’s, but Laurel couldn’t really put her finger on how they were different. His teeth, though, they were similar, except that his mouth was filled with fangs.

He wore all black, and the chains on her were far heavier than hers. His wrists were covered in thick blocks of grey metal. The blocks had strange markings on them which glowed subtly with a faint light that did nothing more to illuminate the cells they were each trapped in.

“Right.” Laurel took a deep breath and tried to regain what was left of her calm, which lay in tatters. “Okay. So you’re definitely not human. I don’t know what you are, but not human. And magic is real. I get that. I mean, I don’t get that, but it seems foolish to argue when you’re standing right in front of me, and when I was kidnapped by… by what, by teleporting pirates? Oh, god, I can’t believe I just said that.” She stopped talking, then, getting control of her runaway mouth with some effort. Then she took another deep breath. “So. What are you?”

Meros offered her a smile, a sharp one that promised all sorts of unspecified violence. Laurel hated the look of it, because she didn’t think it fit his face. “A demon,” he answered, his voice slow and smooth. “An Archdemon, if we’re going to be precise, but I doubt that would mean much to you.”

“Does it mean that you’re entirely evil?” Laurel asked before she could consider whether the question was polite or not. And then, once she’d said it, she had to complete her thought. “Because, I have to say, if I was going to have a… a what, a soulmate? I wouldn’t have picked a being of ultimate evil.” She winced as she spoke, but she couldn’t stop herself. She supposed she deserved to know, but there probably would have been a nicer way to ask it.

“A Heart is very much like the Mundane mythos that surrounds soulmates, yes. Every Arcosian has two of them.” Meros didn’t seem at all offended by her questions, and he shrugged. “And while many of my brethren and sistren are evil, I do not consider myself to be. In fact, before those fool men contracted with me, I was… trying to find a way out. I failed, of course, and here I am once more. Bound in the service of other monsters.” He laughed, and there was no joy in the sound.

Laurel forced herself to breathe as she considered all the information she’d just gained. It was all so much to grasp, and there was so much information coming at her so quickly that she didn’t know if she could keep up. She was a good student, when she put her mind to it, but there was only so much she could absorb. “So… Arcosians have two soulmates, and they hide their names with the bracelets, right?” She was pretty sure she understood that much, at least.

“That’s correct,” Meros agreed with a small nod. He was studying her, and the intensity of his gaze was uncomfortable to Laurel. 

“My mother wears bracelets like these,” she whispered. She looked away from him and down at her hands, at the bracelets which covered Meros’ name. Her mother wore bracelets very much like these, and so did Kaiden and Dominic, and so did most of the patrons of The Merry Maid.

“Perhaps you’re not Mundane-born,” Meros said. “Bracelets like those are typically found in Arcosian people only, especially those designs on yours. I recognize a few of the runes.”

Laurel laughed, the sound a little hysterical. She couldn’t help it. “No,” she said, though she wasn’t certain at all. “My mother… she’s a bouncer in a bar. She gets drunk three or four nights a week and sings terrible karaoke on the nights that she makes it home by herself. Normally Kaiden has to walk her home. She’s a broken-hearted woman who did her best to raise her daughter. She’s not… she couldn’t be magical.” Could she?

“But you’ve never seen her without the bracelets, have you?” Meros was almost smirking at her when she glanced up at him, and when she shook her head, the expression turned into a grin. “Arcosians never take their bracelets off in front of someone else. It’s a great weakness, revealing the names of your Hearts. Most use public names for themselves, as well, so that they don’t become someone else’s weakness. Like Skyqueen, who kidnapped you. I don’t know her real name, and very few people would.” Meros shook his head, still smiling. “Arcos is a dangerous place for those perceived as weak, and the habits learned here are often permanent, even among those who leave Arcos for the Mundane Lands. Or so I’ve heard.”

Laurel bit her lip. There was something there, she thought. A memory, just barely… it came to mind when Meros mentioned taking a public name.

_“You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Firestorm. You’ll drink yourself to death.” Kaiden, dropping her mother off after a shift at the bar. Laurel wasn’t certain, but she’d been ten years old, or somewhere around there. Maybe a little older. Old enough that she didn’t have to stay above the bar with Dominic anymore. She could stay home on her own. She was a big girl._

_“Don’t fucking call me that, dickhead! It’s Persephone now. Per-se-pho-ne. Bringer of destruction. That’s me, Kaiden. I destroy everything. Oh, god, why do I destroy everything?”_

The memory faded away, then, because Laurel had covered her head with her pillow and tried to drown out her mother’s drunken sobs. She was pretty sure they’d gone to stay with both Kaiden and Dominic that night. They were good for her mother, and they always took care of her when she was at her lowest.

There were times, now that she was older, that she wondered if maybe they hadn’t been more than just friends some of the time, but she’d never dared ask her mother. Mostly because she’d been afraid that she would answer honestly, and Laurel didn’t want to know.

“You’ve gone quiet on me.” 

Meros’ words drew her back to herself and Laurel quirked her lips at him in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Just thinking. A memory from when I was younger. Would Firestorm be one of those public names?”

Meros’ breath left him in a soft whistle. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in twenty-odd years. Why do you ask that?”

“My mother,” Laurel said slowly. “Her boss, the owner of the bar that she works at, Kaiden? He called her that once when she was really wasted. She got pissed, told him that wasn’t her name anymore, and that she was Persephone. I think I was ten, maybe a little older. It was the only time I ever heard that name.” Laurel shrugged. “It just… when you were saying that about taking a public name, you made me think of it.”

Meros lunged forward suddenly, and he pressed his face against the bars of his cell. “Come a little further out into the light for me, would you?”

“Why?” Laurel stepped forward even as she asked the question. She didn’t see why she shouldn’t.

Meros studied her silently for what felt like an eternity before he let out a surprised, genuine little laugh. “Oh.” He couldn’t say anything more, because he was laughing so hard. “Little girl, little girl, what have I got in you?”

“I don’t know, but you’re freaking me out a bit.” She shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re twenty-some years old, aren’t you?” Meros was still laughing softly as he asked the question.

“I just turned twenty-one last night,” Laurel said slowly, wondering what that had to do with anything at all. “At least, I think it was last night. I’ve been unconscious, so I guess it could have been longer ago. Happy birthday to me, I guess.”

“Your mother is…” Meros stopped and laughed again, but there was an admiring tone to it now. “If I’m right, and I grant you the chance that I’m wrong, your mother is likely one of the most notorious criminals in Arcosian history, and considering that Arcosian history is riddled with criminals, that’s impressive. Back in her prime, she was considered practically unstoppable. And if I’m right, your father was her partner, who is literally a force of nature. The two of them together were… electric, really, in a way that hasn’t been seen since they split up. If she goes to Frozenflame for help, well, let’s just say that Skyqueen and her Hounds won’t stand a chance against them, not with Stormshadow in the mix.”

Her mother, a criminal? Laurel wished that she could object, that she could say it was unlikely in some way, but the fact was that it sounded more likely than not. She didn’t want to see it, but she could, easily. Her mother had the personality to be a crook, Laurel thought. She’d just… never considered that before.

Not even when she’d found that box with the gun in it when she was younger. She’d thought it was for protection, though she hadn’t understood why any of the other stuff was in there. She’d also thought her mom probably didn’t want her to know about the box, so she’d never mentioned finding it.

Before she could say as much, Meros was adding, “And it would make sense. I thought, when I first looked at you, that you were Mundane-born. It’s how you’re dressed, after all. You have to have a Gift in order to have Hearts, but that doesn’t mean that you’re powerful. But… looking at you… there’s something there that I don’t recognize, a Gift that I’ve never seen before. I think it might be one of the Wild Gifts, which means that you might be strong enough to get us both out of here without waiting for your parents.” Meros laughed once more, and this time, there was an almost hysterical edge to it. He leaned against the bars to his cell and closed his eyes.

Laurel wondered why it looked as though he couldn’t stand up, but she pushed the thoughts back. Instead, she focused on the other statement that had genuinely surprised her. She hadn’t caught it at first, not when they’d been talking about the fact that her mother was a criminal of some kind, but… “My father’s alive?” she asked, her voice small. “And you know who he is?”

“I can’t be entirely sure.” Meros looked up at her then, all humor gone from his face. He suddenly looked almost apologetic. “But I also can’t imagine that your father would be anyone other than Frozenflame, given the way that your mother used to hang around him. And if it is Frozenflame, then I’m almost positive he isn’t dead. Given what he is, we’d know if he was.”

Laurel didn’t know what to say about that. She wanted clarification, wanted to ask what her father was, whether or not he was a demon like Meros, but at the same time, she didn’t want to know. She didn’t know if she could process anything more.

So she took a step back from the bars of her cell and offered Meros a weak, trembling approximation of a smile. “I think I need some time to process all of this,” she said.

Meros nodded. “It’s a shock to you, I understand,” he said. He took a step back himself, and Laurel tried not to feel devastated at the way that his shoulders slumped ever so slightly. “When you’re ready, I might have a way to get us out of here, without using whatever powers you may or may not have.” This was said hesitantly, like he wasn’t even sure he wanted to make the offer.

Laurel nodded. “Thanks,” she said. She sat on the hard floor of the cell and leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.

“If you have any questions—” Meros started.

“I’ll ask,” Laurel said. She regretted her shortness, but she couldn’t handle anything more. She’d reached her capacity. “Thank you,” she added, trying to soften the harshness of her words.

Their cells went silent, then, and Laurel kept her eyes closed and tried to focus on digesting all of th information she’d learned in such a short period of time. It spun in her head, turning into a massive knot that felt like it was going to make her sick if she gave it the chance to do so.

She worked on untangling it, piece by piece, because she would need to understand everything before she decided what to do next.


	6. Chapter Five - Wherein Percy Hunts for her Daughter with the Help of an Oracle

“Who the fuck is Allseeing?” Percy couldn’t contain her outburst, but at least she’d waited until the door was closed. Nobody in The Merry Maid needed to know anything about her personal business, at least, no one that didn’t already know it, anyway.

“He’s an Oracle in Arcos,” Dominic explained. “He has… connections, everywhere, really, and rumor has it that he’s the most accurate Oracle to ever live.” Dominic hesitated, then continued to speak with a small shrug. “They say he’s the Avatar for the Sleeping God, and that he’s working towards something the rest of us will never understand. That’s what my brother believes, anyway, and you know how hard it is to convince Rianair of anything.”

Percy frowned. “The Sleeping God is… well, he’s still sleeping, isn’t he? Isn’t that how the story goes, that he just kinda got tired and fell asleep? Why would he have an Avatar?” Percy had heard of other gods taking them, of course, Arcos was lousy with gods, but this didn’t sound quite right.

Besides, none of those other gods were The Sleeping God. Nahiel. The God rumored to be responsible for the entirety of Arcos. He was kind of a big deal.

“He woke up,” Kaiden said, his voice dry. He headed into the bedroom, but he called over his shoulder, “He woke up about fifteen or so years ago, right about the time that Bloodbound lost control of her empire and the whole thing collapsed. Rumor has it that those two things are related.”

Dominic took up the thread of conversation when Kaiden fell silent. “It was an impressive bit of chaos, even for Arcos. Lots of people died, and there was a bit of a dust up in the power of the Provinces. The Thrells came out on top of the whole thing, of course, because my brother’s badass, and also due in part to Allseeing’s help.”

Percy vaguely remembered Bloodbound, and the way that magic hadn’t quite worked right around her. It had been the most unsettling thing she’d ever experienced, and she wasn’t sorry to hear that Bloodbound had fallen. That was the way it went in Arcos, anyway. Power came and went, like the ebb and flow of a tide.

“So you think he might help us?” she asked, focusing on what really mattered. If he really was that accurate, then maybe she could get her daughter back safe and sound, before Arcos managed to ruin her like it ruined everyone else.

“He might.” Dominic bit his lip. “He’s… peculiar, I guess you could say. Like I said, he’s working towards his own agenda, and no one really knows what it is. If his plan, whatever it might be, specifically requires that you not find your daughter, then he probably won’t help us. He might even be honest about it.” Dominic shrugged, his expression a little lost. “He’s just the best idea I’ve got, since we’ve all been out of the game for a while.”

Kaiden re-emerged from the bedroom, then, dressed for battle. His black clothes were made of dragon-skin, much like hers, and it likely had similar wards and enchantments worked into it. Unlike her, he wore swords at his hips, and didn’t carry any other pouches other than his money pouch. He didn’t need the same gear as she did, the flashy bastard.

Dominic, who’d just gone into the bedroom, would carry the potions, undoubtedly. He always had preferred poisons.

“He’s probably our best chance,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve had some thoughts on suspects, and I’m sure that Frozenflame made it up there on your list, but we don’t know where he is. We could spend more than a year just looking for him, just checking common haunts, and if he’s moving from job to job like he normally does…”

Percy grimaced, because Kaiden was right. That was how Laranel operated, never staying in one place for long, always moving forward. “So how expensive is this guy?” she asked, because she really didn’t see another way forward, aside from going and beating up anyone who looked like they had some clue about Laranel. “I mean, you know that I’ll pay whatever the price, because my daughter is worth it, I just want an idea of what I’m getting in for.”

Kaiden grimaced. “That’s the thing about him. Allseeing doesn’t take money, he takes favors, and he won’t tell you what it is you’ll owe him until it’s too late. You’ll owe him something of equal value to saving your daughter.”

Percy let out a soft whistle. A favor that meant as much to her as saving her daughter? That was a steep order, a payment she wasn’t sure she’d be able to bring herself to make when the time came. But, then again, it would only be relevant when the debt came true. “Fuck,” she muttered. She hadn’t gotten as far as she had by being cautious, and if she couldn’t pay up when the debt came due, well, she’d deal with it then.

Dominic slipped out of the bedroom then, wearing soft silken silver robes with purple trim that matched his eyes. “You’ll owe him a lot in the future,” he said with a small nod. “But Allseeing’s fair. More fair than any other Arcosian I’ve ever met. He won’t ask for more than you’re willing to give, and he’ll most likely be honest if he can’t help us. It’s only if we push that he’ll get dangerous. Most likely.” 

“Right,” Percy muttered. She shook her head. “So I’ll be polite when I see him, and I won’t push him. And if he gives me cryptic, terrible advice, I should just let it go.”

Kaiden nodded. “Right. And if he tells you he can’t help, you need to walk away.”

“Want to try him?” Dominic asked. There was a small, wicked little grin tilting the corners of his lips.

Percy couldn’t help the urge to glare at him for that expression. “Do I have a choice?” she asked. Because she really didn’t see another option, for all that she desperately wanted one.

“There’s always a choice,” Dominic offered, his grin going just a little more feral. “But this is your best option. Besides, you heard Cass. He promises that you’ll get your daughter back, and within two days. What could go wrong?”

Now that he’d said that, he’d definitely jinxed them all. “He never said what condition Laurel would be in,” Percy snapped. “So forgive me if I’m worried about that. And if I’m worried about some nebulous favor meaning as much to me as bringing back my daughter. You understand that I would move the universe to get her back, don’t you? If she’s hurt, if something happens to her, if Arcos…”

She looked down and tried to fight back the tears that sprang to her eyes. Her daughter could be being tortured at that very moment. She could have been raped. She could be scared and crying alone in the dark somewhere, and there was nothing Percy could do about it, nothing she could do to help her.

She didn’t even realize how much she was panicking until Dominic gently gripped her wrist and the feelings faded gently away, drained by the incubus. “Panic won’t save her,” Dominic murmured. “We’ll find her, one way or another. And if she’s been hurt, we’ll hurt the ones who hurt her.”

Percy took a deep breath and swallowed the lump in her throat. It had no place there. “Well then,” she said, steeling herself. “We’re off to see the wizard, right?”

“Right,” Kaiden said. He stepped forward and pulled Percy into his arms, and Dominic went with her, trapping her into a three-way hug. “Hold on. I’m going to use a Porter to get us there.”

Percy buried her face in Kaiden’s scaled shirt and closed her eyes. She heard the shattering sound of glass, then felt the distinct vacuum of a Porter being activated. The bone deep cold of the Unknown began to sink into her skin, as the mist swirled up around her, and then the room around them faded into grey mist.

* * *

The mist felt like it lasted forever. It was always Percy’s least favorite part of travelling through the Unknown, the way that it always felt like she’d never be free of it. Too many people got lost there for her to ever be comfortable travelling through it, even with the safety of the Porters.

It didn’t last forever, of course. Porters were the fastest way to move through the Unknown, but that didn’t change how unsettling the travel was. And Porters came with their own side effects, of course. There was always something jarring about moving almost instantly from one place to another, especially when one wasn’t designed to do such things.

Being an average human without more than a single element to her name, Percy definitely wasn’t designed for near-instant travel. It wasn’t like she was a demon or anything.

When the fog finally faded, and the last of the chill had faded away with it, leaving her bones feeling something like normal again, Percy opened her eyes to find herself in something that could absolutely be compared to a Mundane doctor’s waiting room. It would be easy to mistake herself for still being in the Mundane world, but Percy could feel it, all around her, in a way that she hadn’t in twenty years. The electricity, the energy, the chaotic magic of Arcos was a feeling that she’d never felt anywhere but here, and it felt like coming home.

She let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, and she wasn’t even surprised when it was shakier than she’d expected.

Both Dominic and Kaiden were staring at her knowingly. “You okay?” Kaiden asked, his eyes soft. “I know it’s rough, coming back for the first time.”

Percy shook her head. “Not rough being back,” she said honestly. “But I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to leave again. Not to stay. The Mundane Lands just don’t feel like this, and honestly, I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be surrounded by magic.”

“That’s fair,” Dominic said. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and steered her to one of the low couches that filled the room. “If you do decide that you’d like to stay, I’m sure that my family could set you up with something.”

Percy let herself be guided to the seat, let her legs give out on her, let herself sink into the couch. “I’ll think about it,” she said. If she stayed, she didn’t know that she’d want to rely on anyone else. Besides, the plan was still to get Laurel and get her out before this place could infect her the way that it infected all Arcosians.

Then she straightened in her seat. “Shouldn’t we check in?” she asked, looking around. The waiting room was filled with all manner of species, from trolls to elves to a handful of pixies. She even thought she spotted the woman whose name she’d taken, the goddess, sitting patiently in one of the chairs.

The room around her had quieted, and Percy got the distinct impression that she was being laughed at. The feeling was only reinforced when a grizzled dwarf sitting near them let out a cackle. “He’s the Allseeing, little girl,” he said, patronization dripping from his voice. “He knows we’re here. He’ll call us if he wants to see us, and if he isn’t seeing anyone at all, we all get kicked out of the waiting room.”

“Right,” Percy muttered. Because of course he knew everyone was out waiting for him, because he was some stupidly accurate Oracle. Regardless of the fact that she’d never met an actually accurate one, regardless of the fact that all Oracles were revealed as charlatans in the end, at least every one she’d ever met who billed themselves as one, there had to be something to the man. Especially since so many people were waiting to see him.

Then again, in the century she’d been around, she’d seen thousands of fads for Arcosians to jump into and out of.

A soft bell chimed, and the waiting room fell silent once more. Then a young man stepped into a doorway that Percy hadn’t even noticed before and called out, “Persephone Johnson and party!” When she stood, he offered her a low bow and a sweet smile. He had to be older than he looked; Arcosians always were. “The Allseeing will see you now.”

“Let’s go,” Kaiden muttered. He looked nervous, his eyes darting around the crowded room. “And for god’s sake, Percy, please be respectful. He can swat you like a fly, so don’t annoy him.”

Percy rolled her eyes as they walked down a seemingly endless hallway. “Please,” she muttered. “You say that like I haven’t played with people out of my league before. I’m fucking death bait. Everyone’s ahead of me in the power game, probably even my daughter. I know how not to piss off the hot shots.”

The hall ended up ahead in a doorway. There was another young man waiting for them in it, a benevolent smile on his face. He had long black hair, pale grey eyes, and the eight-pointed star of the Sleeping God tattooed on his right cheek. It shimmered and shifted colors even as she watched. He wore torn jeans and a t-shirt that proclaimed, “Those who claim to know everything annoy those of us who do.” 

Percy couldn’t help her snort. “Nice shirt,” she said. She could appreciate a good bit of sarcasm.

His smile turned into something more real, something almost feral. “Thanks,” he said brightly. “I’ve been waiting for you, Persephone,” he added. “You’re a bit behind schedule, and it’s held some of the people up in the waiting room. I suppose it’s not in your control that your daughter was taken from you a bit later than she should have been, by just a few minutes, really, but it all adds up.”

Percy shook her head in confusion. “What?” she asked, the word a little flat. She knew that appearance meant nothing in Arcos, that age was deceptive, but this guy looked like he was Laurel’s age, maybe even younger. And yeah, okay, she was a little over a hundred years old and didn’t look it, but there was no way this kid was older than her daughter. “I’m sorry, but what?” He just wasn’t what she’d expected, even in the short period of time she’d been expecting anything at all.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” the Allseeing said earnestly, his eyes twinkling. “You just need to try to be on time next time. I have a schedule to try and keep, you know.” He shrugged and flung himself into the comfortable looking office chair behind the desk that dominated the room.

She’d barely noticed before, but the room she’d walked into appeared to be nothing more than just that: an office. There were a few knick-knacks here and there, a handful of photos on the desk, a few fascinating sculptures and bottles on the bookshelf, and a few paintings on the walls. There was no crystal ball, no scrying pool, not even a deck of cards.

“You…” She took a deep breath, not sure where she was going with her question, or if she could even ask it diplomatically.

“Don’t have the standard accoutrements? Nope.” He popped the ‘p’ obnoxiously and grinned at her, his eyes still sparkling. “Don’t need them.” Then he hesitated and shrugged a little. “Well. I guess it’s better to say that I don’t need them for most things. I can scry, have a room for it and everything, but it’s for bigger workings than what you need.” He gestured for her to sit and settled deeper into his own chair.

Percy forced herself to sit, then she glanced back to see what Dominic and Kaiden were doing. It was only then that she realized they hadn’t entered the room with her. She opened her mouth to ask about that, but she decided he probably wouldn’t give her an answer. Instead, she asked, “And you know exactly what I need, don’t you?” He seemed like the type who would think that he did, whether or not he actually did.

He leaned forward and folded his hands on his desk. “I know exactly what you need,” he said, the words more grave than anything she’d heard him say yet. “And I know what you think you need. I’m in a position to provide both those things for you, in one shiny little package. The question I have for you is this: How much do you want it?”

Percy leaned forward as well. She was determined not to express any intimidation; she’d been dealing with punks like this one for a century. “If you really know everything, then why don’t you tell me the answer to that, oh great Allseeing.” She smirked at him, leaning back casually, as though she weren’t at all intimidated.

He laughed at her, the sound bright and bubbling. “I could do that, certainly,” he said with a dip of his head. “I could tell you every possible future wherein I ask for things and you, unhesitatingly, give everything I ask for because you cannot stand the thought of your daughter suffering for crimes you committed. I could tell you that in most of those futures, Persephone, you die, and the world is neither better nor worse for it.” He shrugged. “But I don’t want to do it that way. I want you to answer my question. How much do you want my information?”

Percy’s lips curled into a snarl before she forced her expression to smooth out. “You’re a real asshole,” she said admiringly. She pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a flick of her fingers. She took a long drag of it, then exhaled with a small smile. “And I would give up my own life in a heartbeat if it meant saving my daughter from this shitshow of a place.” 

Arcos was her home, it would always be her home, but it was no place for her daughter. Her sweet, innocent daughter wouldn’t thrive in this chaotic hellhole. It would ruin her, and Percy was so very tired of ruining things.

Allseeing’s head fell to the side, like a dog considering a new sound. “What if I told you it was too late?” he asked. “If I were to say that she’s already been corrupted by this shitshow, and there’s nothing you can ever do to take her away from Arcos?” His grey eyes bore into hers, all the sparkle gone from them.

She didn’t flinch away. “Then I would do everything in my power to make sure she took this realm for everything in it,” she hissed. “I would set her up like a motherfucking princess, and I’d raise hell to do it. Now quit dicking me around and tell me what I need to know. You already know I’ll pay whatever your price is.”

The Allseeing’s eyes lit up with an unholy sort of glee. “Oh, I do like you,” he breathed. “As for what I want from you, a simple promise of a favor in return at some later date is all I’ll require. It won’t be anything you can’t do, scout’s honor.” The smirk on his face gave the lie to those words.

“You have my promise,” Percy said immediately. She took another drag of her cigarette as something soft and blue and glittering swirled out of her and coalesced into a small figurine on the man’s desk. It looked almost like her, but not quite right. It was difficult to explain, but it made Percy uncomfortable to look at. So she didn’t, and blustered instead to hide her discomfort. “What the fuck is that?”

“Tangible proof of the debt you owe me,” Allseeing said. He touched the figurine with a delicate finger. “When you’ve repaid it, I’ll shatter it and provide you with a formal message stating as such. If you elect not pay your debt in the manner of my choosing, I can call in the marker, so to speak. Your life will be forfeit.” He shrugged. “Just the price of doing business, I’m afraid.”

“Right,” she muttered. Of course that was it. She took a deep breath and let it out, exhaling more smoke. It was about what she’d expected, really. If he truly worked in favors, then he had to have a way to make sure they were repaid promptly. It certainly wasn’t the worst deal she’d ever labored under. “So tell me what I need to know.”

“There are events in motion which you cannot disrupt,” he said, sitting up straight. His voice took on an almost lyrical cadence, his eyes shifting to a lighter shade, almost to white. “Therefore, I cannot give you the precise location of your daughter at this time. Even if I could, Kaiden and Dominic are hardly powerful enough to deal with the ones who took your daughter. I can instead direct you to the place where you will easily obtain said information, sometime tomorrow afternoon. By that point you will have obtained more than enough in the way of backup to rescue your daughter from the situation in which she’s found herself.”

He let out a shuddering breath and pitched forward a little, like he’d been released from the grip of something powerful. A heaviness in the room receded that Percy hadn’t even noticed until it was gone, and she shuddered to have felt it go. She didn’t ever want to know what caused it.

Instead, she focused on the most important thing. “And that place is?” she asked, deliberately ignoring the weight that had left the room.

“I believe you’re familiar with it,” he said. He shook himself and opened his eyes, smiling brightly at her once more. “I don’t know what its name originally was, as the past is not really within my purview. These days, people just call it the Nest.” The bastard starting laughing, then, more of a cackle than anything else.

The sound, and the name, made her grit her teeth in frustration. “And does Frozenflame still hang around there?” she asked through gritted teeth. Laranel… if he’d taken her daughter…

“I’m sure that isn’t for me to say,” Allseeing said through his chortles. “Best wishes to you, Persephone Johnson. I like you, I really do, and I look forward to our time together.” He leaned in, his eyes so bright they almost hurt to look at. “I think you’ll make Arcos a fascinating place.” He wrinkled his nose at her, and suddenly she was standing in the hallway with Kaiden and Dominic.

“Fucking Christ, he’s an annoying little shit,” she breathed, reeling from the sudden change in location.

Dominic rolled his eyes. “You have no idea,” he said with a sigh. “I had to live with the little shit for a year when his father got together with my brother, before I left to be with Kaiden. He’s a nightmare.”

Kaiden scowled at them both. “He’s annoying, but not as bad as some people.” He nodded at Percy, and she grinned a little at the implication that she was more obnoxious than that little shit. “Do we have a location?”

“We’re headed to the Nest,” Percy said. She let out a small sigh and finished her cigarette. “Apparently I’ll find out where I can find my daughter tomorrow. Not tonight, but tomorrow.” She couldn’t hide her disgust at the thought. Her daughter was going to be spending the night in Arcos, maybe tomorrow night too, if Cass were to be believed. And if Allseeing hadn’t just been fucking with her, if she really wasn’t going to leave, well, maybe it would be longer than that.

“Cass said we’d find her,” Dominic reminded her with a smile. “And Allseeing wouldn’t lie to you, not if you didn’t piss him off.”

Percy snorted. She didn’t see how she could have, honestly. “The little fucker said he liked me,” she said with some disgust. “Said I’d make things fascinating. I don’t even know what to do with that!”

“Oh, Percy, did he really?” Dominic asked, sounding horrifically sympathetic. “I’m sure everything will be fine,” he added, even as he fished out another Porter and pulled her close, Kaiden following.

The disbelief in his voice wasn’t even a surprise, because Percy honestly didn’t believe that everything would work out herself. After all, he’d made it pretty clear that she could die fulfilling her obligation to him, and while she’d die for her daughter in a heartbeat, that didn’t mean she was eager to do it.

Fucking Arcos. It fucked up everything.

Dominic activated their Porter, and she was consumed by the cold of the Unknown once more.


End file.
